When you are looking for a lost cat, in most cases you will find coyote scat somewhere within a 500 foot radius of the point the lost cat was last seen. Komu the cat-detection dog finds coyote scat on almost every lost cat search we do. In most cases, this is good news because we are able to see that the local coyotes are eating their typical diet of rabbits, rodents, fruit, and garbage. You see, coyotes eat everything, and fur and bones often pass through completely identifiable, almost as good as new. Coyotes also usually poop right in the middle of a trail, or on a sidewalk or in the street, so their scat is usually easy to find, even without a trained search dog.

In the past two weeks, Komu found two samples of scat that was not immediately identifiable as containing their usual natural diet. In other words, it couldn’t immediately be ruled out as being the fur and bones of a domestic cat. I collected the samples to take a closer look, and see exactly what the coyote had been eating. In the first case, we were looking for a gray cat, and the scat contained grey fur. I looked for bones, claws, or teeth, and I unwadded the fur to get a better look. I couldn’t be certain, but it seemed more like the fur and claws of a possum, not a cat. In the second case, we were looking for a black and tan striped tabby, and I found fur that could be a match. I also found cat claws in the scat, which are unlike any other animal’s claws. In the second instance, the evidence collected from coyote scat strongly suggested that the lost cat was taken by a coyote. There could be other explanations for the fur and claws, like, for example, if a nearly identical cat just happened to be killed by a coyote in the lost cat’s neighborhood. The most likely explanation was that the lost cat was the victim. The owner of the lost cat took some samples from the scat, including a completely intact small bone, and she planned to test the DNA to see if it was a match.

Looking for your lost cat is hard enough, and you probably don’t want to go poking through coyote poop for clues about your lost cat. If you are up to the task, checking coyote scat can be a useful method of learning more about what may have happened to your lost cat. Hiring Komu and me is always an option, if you don’t feel up to the task. Of course, I don’t particularly enjoy collecting and dissecting coyote poop, but I have done it hundreds of times. Since the lost cat is not my cat, it is not as upsetting as it would be for the owner of the lost cat to perform this task. It’s part of my job, and I do it to try to provide answers to the family of the lost cat.